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our visit, and to thank him for his frank manner in answering the several
questions which were put to him.
The time probably is not far distant when the recommendation of the
Select Committee of the House of Commons on East London "Water Bills, &c.,
will he carried into effect, viz., to compel each Town to intercept its sewage
and apply it to some adjacent land, which could be done at small cost and
with great agricultural profit. "By these means each town would bear the
cost and enjoy the advantages resulting from its own sewage; and, as the
quantity of sewage would be in proportion to the population, each place
would be treated with an equal measure of justice."
Overcrowding.
The question of overcrowding in the houses occupied by the poor is one
of the most important that can engage the attention of the public. From the
experience that the Sanitary Officers have gained in this District, by daily
visitations, and, on two or three occasions by nightly visits, they are fully
aware that the great evil of the overcrowding of the tenements of the poor
prevails very extensively; and they believe, if a similar system of visitation
of other Districts in the East of London were to be carried out, that similar
results would be obtained.
On the 7th April the Inspectors having received information that the
following premises, viz., No. 6, Goulston Street; No. 6, Inkhorn Court; No.
3, Marlborough Court; and No. 1, Castle Alley; were overcrowded and indecently
occupied, they proceeded together to make a night inspection of them.
The following results were obtained: In the front room of the first floor of
No. 6, Goulston Street, which has a cubic space of 1408 feet, there were four
men, one woman, and a child, and in the room above, which is of the same
size, there were eight persons, viz., four men, three women and a child.
On the same night the Inspectors visited No. 6, Inkhorn Court, and on
the third floor of this house they saw three women, a man, and a child.
The Inspectors were not allowed to enter the ground floor room.
On the following night, Tuesday, the 5th of April, the Inspectors visited
the house No. 3, Marlborough Court, and on the second floor they discovered
three women, two men, and a child.
At 6 o'clock on the morning of the 9th April, they again visited No. 6,
Inkhorn Court, and on entering the room on the ground floor, where they
were refused admittance on the night of the 4th, they found three men and
three women. These were the same persons who had been compelled to
remove from No. 1, Castle Alley, a house belonging to the same owner as
that of No. 6, Inkhorn Court; so that when the indecent occupation of one
house was ordered to be discontinued, the same parties removed to another
house belonging to the same landlord. The smell of the rooms inspected on
these occasions was, in the words of the Inspectors, "most offensive and